


delight, mirrored

by rainny_days



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Christmas Presents, Fluff, Holidays, Knitting, M/M, Mistletoe, Office Party, Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Season/Series 01, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21835609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainny_days/pseuds/rainny_days
Summary: Two winters, three presents, and the ways that Jon makes Martin feel.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James & Jonathan Sims, Sasha James & Tim Stoker
Comments: 14
Kudos: 229





	delight, mirrored

**Author's Note:**

> idk guys this is pretty much just pre-s1 holidays fluff and a lil cottage fluff

“Hey,” Tim shakes the hat under Martin’s face, grinning. “It’s your turn.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “There’s only four of us,” he points out, not unreasonably. “Doesn’t that…I don’t know, make the whole ‘Secret Santa’ thing a bit underwhelming?”

“It’s about the spirit of the season!” Tim insists. “You don’t want to be like Mr. Grinch- I mean, _Sims_ , do you?”

He gestures a hand at Jon’s office, and Martin has to hide snicker behind his palm. “ _Fine_ ,” he concedes, reaching in and picking out a slip of paper. When Tim wiggles his eyebrows at him, he waves him away. “I’m not opening it in _front_ of you- this whole thing is already too easy to guess without you peeking.”

Tim pouts at him dramatically, his lips twitching a little when Martin only raises an eyebrow at him. “Ugh, spoilsport,” he says, ruffling Martin’s hair before turning his enthusiasm towards Sasha’s desk. “Sasha! Light of my life-”

Martin laughs at Sasha’s exasperated sigh, sharing a commiserating look with her before looking down at his small fold of paper. With mild trepidation, he opens it. Groans.

 _Why couldn’t it have been anyone else_ , he thinks, grimacing, as he looks at the neat, spiky ‘Jonathan Sims’ written on the small piece of paper.

⁂ 

In retrospect, Martin couldn’t have told you what had driven him to his choice of presents except that it had seemed justified, at the time. He had picked up a habit of knitting, recently, mostly to occupy his hands whenever he visited his mother. She had grown increasingly impatient towards his attempts to read to her, and seemed more and more agitated when he spoke at all. It was- easier, to just sit there, the soft _click_ of needles in his hands filling the silence the way his words never seemed to.

When he looked down one day and found himself with the beginnings of a jumper, it seemed a waste not to finish it. And when he realized, sometime at the halfway point, that he was making it a bit too small for him, that he’d been using a color of soft grey that he wasn’t partial to himself, but he’d seen Jon wearing on occasion around the archives- well, at least he wouldn’t have to spend any of his meager savings on Jon.

It was economically sound, he told himself, subtly watching the way Jon sometimes shivered in the draft of the offices, the idiot too stubborn to just _put on a coat_. It was more convenient, he informed his brain, seeing Jon stare at the steaming mug of tea Martin made for him, looking furtively around before darting his hands out to cradle the warm cup to his chest.

 _It’s just for Secret Santa,_ he thinks, not affectionately at all, as he watches Jon sink a little deeper into his chair, curling into himself a little more. _It’s just because I have to_.

Martin has always been very good at fooling himself.

⁂

“Did Tim make this eggnog?” Sasha wonders, staring down into her glass. “Because I’m pretty sure there’s an entire bar’s worth of brandy in here.” She considers, then ladles more into her glass.

Martin takes a tentative sip of his own, wincing a little at the sharp spike of heat at the back of his throat, burning its way down his esophagus. “Oh my god,” he coughs. “That’s _definitely_ Tim. Christ, are we going to get in trouble for this?”

“Eh,” Sasha shrugs. “What are they going to do, fire us? Not really in the holiday spirit.” She smiles at him, cheeks already a little flushed. “And besides, I’m pretty sure getting pissed and doing something deeply inadvisable at your annual office party is somewhat of a corporate tradition. It would be a shame to ruin all of Tim’s work.”

She looks around the office, and Martin follows her gaze to the tinsel hanging on the walls. The strings of lights. The mistletoe.

“Mistletoe, though? _Really?”_

“It’s _Tim,”_ Sasha reminds him. Which, fair.

“Did somebody summon me?” Tim slings an arm around Martin’s shoulders, grinning, a Santa hat perched jauntily on his head. “Because I heard someone say _inadvisable_.”

“Cute,” Sasha says, a laugh audible in her words. “Nice setup, Tim. Very…festive.”

Tim puts a hand over his heart. “That means a lot, Sasha. It’s good to know that _some people_ have an appreciation for my hard work.” he looks deliberately in Jon’s direction, where he’s frowning over a plate of cookies. _Martin_ had brought those cookies- storebought, sure, but Jon didn’t have to look like he was contemplating drinking poison. He doesn’t so much as glance up at Tim’s words. Tim raises an eyebrow at Martin and Sasha, as if to say _you see? You see what I’m talking about?_

Sasha elbows him lightly. “Everyone has their own ways of dealing with the holidays,” she admonishes. “Jon is just…”

“Physically incapable of showing joy?” Martin suggests.

“The reincarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge?” Tim fills in.

“…not very festive,” Sasha finishes, wry. “I’m sure that the three of us having this conversation without him isn’t helping- Martin, why don’t you try to talk to him?”

Martin squawks. “Why me?” he asks. Sasha and Tim raise their eyebrows in tandem, and he flushes. “Oh, shut up.” because taking a fancy to someone’s looks does _not_ mean that he was- capable of _speaking_ to Jon properly.

Still, because he’s susceptible to peer pressure, he wilts in capitulation and shuffles in Jon’s direction. Jon barely looks up at him, still locked in a stareoff against a tray of butter biscuits.

“Er, Jon?” Martin says awkwardly, smiling at him. He was keenly aware of the small lump of unopened wrapping paper that he could barely see on Jon’s desk, from his vantage point. Jon looks up at him, dark eyes narrowed in suspicion, as if expecting Martin to produce a small poodle from his sweater or something.

 _Such_ an ass.

“Martin,” he says stiffly, nodding at him. He seems to consider, then tacks on. “Happy holidays.”

“Oh!” Martin says, not expecting that level of social competence from him. “Uh- yeah, you too!” he shuffles a little, grasping at potential conversational threads. “So, are you doing anything for the holidays…?”

Jon shrugs. “The usual,” he says, as if Martin would know what that entailed. He pauses. “You?”

For a split second, Martin considers blurting out “ _I’m going to be in the care center where my mom is - because my mom’s unwell, actually, has been for some time. We’re going to sit in silence, a tray of what passes as a ‘holiday meal’ between us, until I can’t stand to suffocate anymore. I’ll wish her happy holidays as I leave, and she won’t say anything back. And then I’ll go home and sleep. That’s my holidays- that’s my life.”_ But, of course, he doesn’t. Because there’s very little in this world he considers less appealing than to get into his complicated relationship with the holidays with Jonathan Sims.

Instead, he shrugs back. “Oh, nothing special,” he says, and it isn’t even a lie.

They fall into small talk, the words coming stilted but at least _present_ , and Martin manages to convince Jon to take a few cookies, gently trying to coax him towards the eggnog with the others when Tim whistles sharply. They both blink in unison, looking at him. He smirks, and points a finger above them. With a sinking feeling, Martin looks up, not surprised to find a small sprig of mistletoe above them. He was going to _destroy_ Tim for this.

Jon, who’d finally been approaching something in the general vicinity of relaxed, immediately locks up, face flushing a dull red. Martin looks at the panic in his face, and internally heaves a small, resigned sigh.

“It’s alright,” he says gently. “Tim’s just _being an arse_.” he says the last part loud enough for Tim to hear, and he just waves his hands at them.

“It’s a _tradition_ ,” he shouts, evidently tipsy, and Martin glares at him before turning back to Jon.

“Like I said,” he tilts his tone to wry, smiling a little. “An arse. You don’t- it’s fine if we don’t.”

Jon blinks at him several times, in rapid succession. Martin wonders, a little hysterically, if Tim managed to break their boss.

“Well,” he says, finally, his voice a little strangled. “If _you’re_ not- I wouldn’t want you to feel-”

Martin stares at him, feeling his face heat. “Um,” he says. “I- uh. I’d be. Fine? I’m, I’m alright either way. I just thought- if you-”

“ _I’m-”_ Jon coughs. “I’d be- yes. It’s fine. It’s…tradition, as Tim so eloquently put it.”

Martin feels an inappropriate giggle rising in his throat, and swallows it down. “Are you- sure? I mean, if this is just because of Tim- you _know_ not to take him seriously- I mean-”

His words stop abruptly when Jon goes on his toes, a determined look on his face, and presses a quick, barely-there kiss on his cheek.

“There,” he says, voice only slightly less steady than usual. “N- Nothing to fuss about.” he nods once, decisive, then makes a sharp turn and hurries towards the eggnog, where a red-faced Sasha is valiantly trying not to break any bones under the force of her suppressed laughter. 

Martin stares after him, stunned, and tries to tell himself that he doesn’t feel the ghost of that kiss on his cheek for the rest of the night.

Later that night, he watches as Jon opens his gift, the soft gray yarn spilling over his hands in the shape of a decently-made, if clearly not expert, jumper. He stares at it for a moment, eyes flickering over Tim, Sasha, and Martin - who keeps his face deliberately still - before looking down again, something soft in his gaze.

Martin sees him in it the next day, the garment slightly large over his thin shoulders, the sleeves tucked over his knuckles. Jon doesn’t shiver, that day, and that knowledge keeps Martin warm for days after, even through the chill of visiting his mother, the silence in his own apartment. 

The memory of his face then, of that night, loud and happy and free from fear, stays with him for a long time.

⁂

_coda._

Neither of them had really talked about the holidays, in the weeks they’d spent in the cottage. So it was a surprise when Jon awkwardly presented a small lump, wrapped neatly in paper, in Martin’s direction.

“It’s not- the best,” Jon says, fidgeting. “But I wanted to give you _something_ , so.”

Martin looks at him, heart in his throat the way he always is when Jon does something so- like _this_ , open and sweet and terrifyingly loving. He takes the package. Laughs, when he realizes that Jon’s wrapped it not in newspaper, but in old statements.

“Really,” he says, after his giggles have stopped, and Jon shrugs, looking smug.

“I thought you might like it,” he replies, and Martin wants to bottle the quiet satisfaction in his voice and keep it forever, safe.

When he unwraps his gift, he can’t help another wave of laughter from washing over him, so sharp that he bends over with the force of it. Jon stares at him, nonplussed.

“I- _Martin_ ,” he says, as Martin giggles. “If you don’t like it, you could just _say_ -”

There’s annoyance in his voice, fondly familiar, but it’s the thin thread of genuine worry underneath that makes Martin straighten up, pull Jon into a hug.

“It’s wonderful,” he says honestly. “It’s just- wait,” he lets Jon go, jogs over to the couch, and produces a small square from underneath the cushions. He hands it over to Jon, lips still twitching with amusement. When Jon opens his present, eyes still a little wide with startled joy, he starts laughing too, the wrapping paper falling to the floor as he clutches the pair of knitted gloves, soft and in a dark blue, in his hands.

“I thought it might be nice, with your scars and all,” Martin says, laughter bubbling up again at Jon’s infectious joy. 

Jon smiles back at Martin, takes the hand that isn’t holding their own pair of obviously hand-made mittens, slightly lumpier and in a warm red. “You’re always wandering out when it snows, so I thought it’d be appropriate,” he admits. “I suppose we had similar thoughts.”

Martin feels the warmth of the gloves and Jon’s hand seeping into him, and feels a frightening joy balloon inside his chest. “Thank you, Jon,” he says again, and he means for more than the the gloves.

Jon looks at him, his gaze still startling in its obvious affection. “I should be the one saying that,” he says, and Martin hears what he’s trying to say, too. All the thanks that he’s pressing into Martin’s hands. It echoes between them, their love and gratitude, the years of affection building between them, and Martin thinks that Jon will never fail to keep him warm, when winter comes.


End file.
